For the past six months, architect Major Andrews has worked with the Columbus Municipal School District planning improvements at the Hunt campus, giving him the impression he would continue those services after a Feb. 23 tornado badly damaged the building on 20th Street North.
That work included what Andrews called “in-kind services” — site tours with district officials, price analyses for needed work and other consulting — at no cost to CMSD. Andrews, owner of Columbus-based Major Design Studio, thought that would give him a leg up in landing the contract to draw the plans to return the Hunt campus to its former glory.
Instead, Superintendent Cherie Labat opted to request proposals from multiple design firms, prompting Andrews and his associate, Ryan Ashford, to appear before the CMSD board’s agenda review meeting Wednesday morning at Columbus Middle School.
“As of last month the board was supposed to look at our contract, but for some reason something has changed,” Ashford said. “We are asking if anything has changed. We are concerned (if) there (was) something we did or what was it that is making the board want to look at another architect after we’ve worked for the last five or six months. That’s our concern.”
Labat and Andrews began discussing improvements at Hunt in late 2018, as part of $1.2 million in capital improvements the district was planning for Hunt before the February storm ripped much of the roof from the building being used for the alternative school and several afterschool programs.
The board, through a disaster declaration, gave Labat the authority to forego the state-required bidding process to quickly move ahead with the work after the storm hit. But she told the board, and representatives from Major Design Studio, on Wednesday she wants to consider multiple firms because of the project’s magnitude. She added she did not want to cut the board out of the process, either.
“I can tell you it’s nothing personal,” Labat said. “We wanted to just open up the bid process. It’s important for us to have an open process. … When I got the legal guidance that I could still get the guidance of the board, I wanted to be more open about the process rather than doing it independently. We are going to look at proposals, (and) we would like to begin construction in January.”
Board President Jason Spears echoed Labat’s position.
“It’s more along the lines of we wanted to take a step back and assess everything,” Spears told Andrews and Ashford during the meeting. “We want to make sure we do it the way it deserves to be done. We don’t want to make a snap decision. That’s why we wanted to open that up. It’s got nothing do with you. Y’all have done great work for us.”
Meanwhile, Labat reported, the district’s insurance company has agreed to cover full replacement costs for the Hunt facility, whatever that amount proves to be. The facility is considered a state landmark by the Mississippi Department of Archives and History, meaning restoration must follow strict historical parameters.
Andrews confirmed to The Dispatch he never had a contract with CMSD for the work, but he considered his firm’s in-kind services “a potential contract.” His firm also was looking at needed renovations at the shuttered Union Academy so it can again host district programs.
Ashford indicated he was under the same impression.
“We were basically trying to help with that process, helping them try to get (Hunt and Union) back up and going,” Ashford said. “We just did some preliminary work for them. … We were under the impression we would get the contract for the work on Hunt.”
Both confirmed they will submit a proposal for the contract, per Labat’s request. However, Ashford did not confirm to The Dispatch the value of the in-kind services already rendered.
Either way, Labat insisted in a text message to The Dispatch that the district never asked the firm to do anything for free.
“No invoices have been presented to CMSD for payment,” Labat said in a text message. “It’s up to (Andrews) to decide if he did it for free or not. We did not ask him to do it at no cost.”
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